Milton Vieira began to believe that he could transfer his neighborhood street scuffles and extensive luta livre esportiva training into mixed martial arts when he met one of the most well-known figured in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

A friend in Rio de Janeiro, Vieira’s hometown, worked out with the team of Carlson Gracie. The son and nephew of Gracie jiu-jitsu’s co-founders Carlos and Helio Gracie, Carlson Gracie ran the respected Carlson Gracie Team, and Vieira’s friend took him by to see Gracie.

“He introduced me to Carlson Gracie himself, and it was my first step in MMA,” Vieira wrote to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “When I got there, the Master did a test with me and I was approved right away.

“After I heard from his mouth that I would be a great fighter, I never stopped anymore. And that really influenced me, having the support of one of the greatest MMA trainers in the world.”

In a career lasting more than 10 years, Vieira is on perhaps his most significant streak of fights. That has helped him take a step into a new organization.

Vieira (12-7-1), who has won four of his past five fights and six of his past eight, will appear on the Strikeforce Challengers 18 card against Sterling Ford (13-4) on Aug. 12. Strikeforce officials announced the matchup on Friday after Vieira’s expected opponent, Bobby Green, was pulled from the fight to compete in this weekend’s “Strikeforce and M-1 Global: Fedor vs. Henderson” event.

Vieira will continue a career that started in June 2001 with a loss but continued to gain support from the Gracie family member. The 32-year-old Vieira, who resides in Rio de Janeiro, made the transition from no-gi fighting to Brazilian jiu-jitsu and hasn’t wavered, steadily climbing in the MMA world while also avoiding major setbacks.

But first, he had to find the sport.

A tailor’s son

One of the most difficult parts of Vieira’s MMA career was convincing his father that it was worthwhile.

He had grown up playing the street games common for kids from small neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro. That included soccer and skateboarding and other ways to pass the time. But spending time playing in the street also required some fighting chops.

“When you play with kids in the street, you need to learn to defend yourself, and I guess it helps a lot nowadays in MMA,” Vieira wrote. “I learned to be aware, to be ready for anything.”

Vieira’s father was a tailor who seemed to constantly be working with clothes. He didn’t like the idea of his son getting into fighting. Like many parents in Brazil, he hoped his son would concentrate on his studies, and professional fighting was still relatively small in attention, Vieira said.

Vieira called his father his “idol,” so one of his biggest obstacles to entering a fighting career was overcoming his father’s skepticism. That started to happen when the father noticed the son’s success and commitment.

“And after I started fighting professionally, he noticed that it was serious and began to support me a lot,” Vieira wrote. “I started bringing happiness to the house with the first victories, and he saw that that was what really made me happy.”
Finding a master

Vieira started training in luta livre esportiva as a way to defend himself around the time he first noticed the UFC. It suddenly seemed like there was a future in practicing martial arts.

After competing in a few no-gi events and gaining his purple belt at a neighborhood gym, Vieira connected with Carlos Gracie, and his outlook on fighting changed. In his mind, he had someone who really knew the sport telling him that he could be successful, which was enough to inspire confidence.

Only a few months after he started training with Gracie, Vieira took his first fight in June 2001. He suffered a decision loss that started a steadily moving MMA career with multiple fights a year for more than a decade.

Vieira fought for numerous promotions, including Pride Bushido, and he built a 9-6-1 record entering one of his biggest fights. In September 2009, Vieira took on Luciano Azevedo at a Bitetti Combat show.

Bigger than the opponent or promotion, Vieira appeared in one of the most famous arenas in Brazil, called Maracanãzinho. With thousands of people watching, he earned a split-decision victory that boosted his confidence and also his popularity.

“(It was) a very big event, with thousands of people watching, and I achieved a great victory,” Vieira wrote.

Vieira now moves on to his Strikeforce debut, which comes on a card headlined by a lightweight bout between Jorge Gurgel and Joe Duarte. The crowd at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas will see a fighter who combined the timing of meeting an MMA force with family support to build a long MMA career that he hopes can continue further.

“Having a family, being married, growing, the support of my wife … everything counts for what I became today,” Vieira wrote. “Being a professional in sports is not easy. Meeting my wife, after everything I’ve been through, was extremely important for my growing.”

Award-winning newspaper reporter Kyle Nagel is the lead features
writer for MMAjunkie.com. His weekly “Fight Path” column focuses on the
circumstances that led fighters to a profession in MMA. Know a fighter
with an interesting story? Email us at news [at] mmajunkie.com.

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